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jclin10
jclin10
Known Participant
April 25, 2023
Question

NAS vs SDD for Lightroom files

  • April 25, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 2558 views

Hi all


I'm looking to get a NAS for home use (mostly backups), but am now wondering if it is better to store my Lightroom files (not the Catalog) on a NAS or on an external SDD that is attached to the primary computer that I'll be using for photo editing.

 

Would love to hear the pros and cons of those two options

 

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 1, 2023

I use both of these in my workflow with the NAS connected either on ethernet or through wifi. There is one thing where it really matters which is stepping through images while in the develop module. When the images are on SSD that is very fast. When going though a network and especially on wifi you'll get a second or so delay depending on the size of the files. For a typical 50 MB raw file on a gigabit ethernet network it is 1/2 a second. For a few hundred MB multilayer tiff, you can be waiting quite a few seconds. Also the latency of the network will be noticeable. If you're on wifi, expect those times to double. 

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
April 25, 2023

The location where you store your photos, and the speed of the disk, and the speed of the connection has a relatively trivial impact on most LrC activities.

 

See https://www.computer-darkroom.com/blog/will-an-ssd-improve-adobe-lightroom-performance/

jclin10
jclin10Author
Known Participant
May 1, 2023

This is super helpful, thank you.

I had planned to get Mac Studio with 2TB internal and an external drive (either SSD or HDD) of 6-8TB. Based on your article, would 2TB internal and 6-8TB external HDD be sufficiently fast? (Assuming I have enough RAM and a strong enough CPU, which the Mac Studio will have). It sounds like an external SSD isn't really necessary.

I suppose I could also split the difference and get something like 4TB internal for projects that I am currently working on and then 4-6TB external HDD, though that may be overkill for my needs.

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
May 1, 2023

I had planned to get Mac Studio with 2TB internal and an external drive (either SSD or HDD) of 6-8TB. Based on your article, would 2TB internal and 6-8TB external HDD be sufficiently fast?

 

Repeating: The location where you store your photos, and the speed of the disk, and the speed of the connection has a relatively trivial impact on most LrC activities.

 

See https://www.computer-darkroom.com/blog/will-an-ssd-improve-adobe-lightroom-performance/

 

Don't even think about putting photos on the internal drive without a very good reason, such as this is a laptop and you don't want to travel with an external disk. Unless you have such a very good reasson, or other non-Lightroom needs for such a large internal drive, get a smaller internal drive. Put all photos on the external HDD.

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